Red Klaxon
by gubbochrubs
Summary: ALEX X DONOVAN. It couldn't always have been Donovan being Alex's strength. Not in Furnace.
1. Sea Change

ALEX X DONOVAN

I couldn't tell where it had started, or even where it had ended. One moment he was just sitting there, all deliberate distance between us, and the next he had closed the gap and his mouth was on mine. Somewhere, remotely, I felt his hands cup my face. My immediate reaction – _what the hell_ – was swamped, _ousted_ by the physical contact; although Donovan wasn't that much bigger than me, his movements were deliberate and forceful, if close to domineering, and I could feel the heat radiating off his entire body, and that liquid heat of his tongue spreading wildly as we kissed. _We. _Plural. Somewhere in those seconds it had stopped being a one-sided thing.

Then he pulled back, but not very far, and even in the pitch black darkness of the cell I could feel him breathing, his chest expanding. An expectant silence, before- "Alex, I…"

It was all he could manage, but it was all that was necessary. It all made sense now; the teasing darkness that I ever-so-often caught beneath his usual tough exterior, the recent curt behaviour and aggression whenever I was close to him. _The lengths he would go to, in order to keep me alive._

I won't hesitate to tell you how confusing it was, mentally speaking. I was never… _so inclined_. At least, it had never occurred to me. I'd had a thing with some girl in one of my classes one semester, but it hadn't been anything serious, of course. And I'd found plenty of girls pretty, especially after my fourteenth birthday. But with another boy, for another boy, no. It had never even crossed my mind. And the very last place I would have expected to lose my first kiss was this hellhole, this inferno of hopelessness. But emotionally and physically speaking… I would be lying if I told you that what Donovan did hadn't sparked a raging inferno _within_ me. It had been five months since I had first arrived at Furnace, and c'mon, it wasn't like a guy got any real privacy around here. And I _was_ a healthy, growing teenager, notwithstanding the current conditions. Not to mention that the fact that Donovan was incredibly attractive. That hadn't been lost on me. At least not in the past few weeks.

"Alex," Donovan said, his voice now reflecting a sort of serious concern, probably in response to my stunned silence. "I'm sorry. Jesus, I don't know what I was thinking, what I've been-"

"It's alright." I swallowed, more to calm myself down more than anything. I couldn't see his face, but I could imagine it: a mask of worry, his jaw clenched in that way that made a muscle in his face pop. He had withdrawn, shuffling away to give me space, and the warm air that rushed in was no substitute for the raging heat of his skin against mine. All I could feel right now was a rush of disappointment, of sudden need to have that feel of him against me back.

Donovan must have opened his mouth to say something, but when it was my turn to pull him towards me, he didn't protest.

Somewhere later on in the night he crawled back to his bunk, and although he didn't fidget, I knew he wasn't sleeping. Like as if we could. This was a total gamechanger for us: one false move and we were dead. I was pretty sure that the blacksuits weren't going to take too kindly to such relations between inmates, and if any of the other boys found out… we'd probably sooner opt for death by the blood dogs rather than be ripped apart by our own peers. We had to be careful, so careful.

But that wasn't why I couldn't get to sleep. It wasn't just the fear of being found out, or the shock of so much happening in just one night – it was the feel of affection, so foreign to me, so heartwrenching. It went without saying that Furnace had taken from me every single thing I once had or claimed as my own – dignity, all my basic human rights, any reason for happiness or laughter – but the thought that it had actually _given_ something, no, someone, to me, was unfathomable. I would have died for the boy sleeping above me – the boy who had been there for me ever since Day One in Hell. He was the one good thing left, the one perfect thing I had to protect, to make sure no one could ever take away from me. He was _hope_.

All of that came as a rush of realization, and suddenly, just like wave, the fatigue of all the day's events washed over me, and I dropped deep into sleep.


	2. Silent Till They Leave

It was the third time they had come. The bloodred lights, the klaxon wail that signalled the start of that horrific nightmare that was the nightly visits of the Wheezers – I would probably never get used to them, but I recognized them now, and could tell the difference between when they had come to collect, and when they had come to return.

As always I could hear no movement from the bunk above me, just the shallowest of breathing, tightly controlled. The cell, all those cells out there, were rank with fear, even as they were silent as graves. I had learnt to do what Donovan did: cover myself with a sheet, and hope for the best. No more getting out of my bed and acting like a fool in the darkness. No more close-ups with those devils.

I couldn't see anything, but no shadow passed across the cell, and within one hour it was all done; the wails and shrieks of inmates as the wheezers marked their targets, and the terrified sympathetic cries from other inmates as they were dragged away by the blacksuits. Then the bloodred lights were switched off, and we were all plunged into darkness once more, except now wails filled the prison as the other boys finally let loose.

Still no sound from the bunk above. I clambered out, my heart thudding, a large part of me still fearful of the dark.

"Donovan?" I called, just to have the comfort of his voice.

"Yeah," he replied, trying to sound annoyed, but the tremble of his voice matched mine in its shakiness. He always did that nowadays, ever since that night. During the day he was fine – in fact, more than fine – but the moment night fell, he would lapse into this grumpy, unpenetrable fortress-like mood.

"Can I come up?" I whispered.

"No," he replied almost instantaneously. His back was toward me; he was facing the wall.

"Please," I asked. I wanted to feel something other than fear, something other than the horror of what had just happened, the horror of that realization of what was going to happen to those five boys tonight, or tomorrow.

He said nothing in reply, not moving. I sat back down, and although my heart was heavy, I made to get back under my sheet. Just as I was about to lie down and try to get the few shreds of sleep that were possible after all that happened, I felt him shift, and soon he was clambering down, the bunk creaking slightly. Wordlessly I made space for him, and he slid in next to me.

For a while he said nothing, and I could feel him just staring up into the metal rungs that formed the base of his bed. We could still hear the cries of the other inmates, even as it was starting to hush as fatigue took over.

"What's wrong?" I whispered, and I reached out to find him, my fingers landing on his arm. Although he didn't move it away, I could feel the tension in his whole body, wound so tight it was like it would snap any moment.

"You don't get it, don't you?" His voice was odd, almost distant.

I didn't say anything, knowing he would continue.

"One day it's going to be us, Alex."

My heart sank. I knew where this was going. Maybe I always had.

"It's not." I obstinately persisted.

"It is," he said, that voice still so empty and hollow. "One night those things are going to mark our cell, and it's going to be one of us. Probably me." He continued talking, but all I could feel right then was my heart sinking, a sort of dull wrenching pain spreading through my chest. "… and it's going to be us screaming as they try to find that syringe, and then…" his voice choked. "Jesus, Alex, I'm so sorry, I should never have-"

Somehow in the darkness I had fumbled, our limbs heavy in the darkness, but my mouth met his anyway, stopping his next few words. Words that were too late anyway. "You listen to me," I mumbled hoarsely, once I'd pulled away, my voice full of bravado – true, false, I didn't know. I didn't care. "We're not going down without a fight. We have our escape plan. And if they do come for us, for one of us, then the other one is going to get out of here somehow, and we're going to get help. I'm not abandoning you, ever, so just shut up about saying sorry or all of that, because it's too late, and I love you." I stopped there, not for dramatic effect, but because I felt the shock of what I had just said run through me. The shock of the truth, anyway. I turned it over in my head, running through those words over and over again. I meant every one of them.

He was crying now, soundlessly, but I felt the liquid of his tears run down his face. Donovan, the boy who had the buff entry rights to the gym, the boy with the vicious strokes of his pick against the red rock, the boy who knew it all, the boy who had to put on a fierce face the moment the cell doors were open.

Those few nights over the past week that we'd spent with each other, he'd always been the one hugging me, the one with the snarky one-liners that put me to sleep with a smile and that swift calm. But tonight, he cuddled within me, and for once, I was his protector. He said nothing, but the gentle slowing of his heart told me he was finally letting go to sleep.

He was right, of course. But he wasn't right that night. And beggars can't be choosers. And even as his heart slowed against mine, I could feel mine speeding up whenever I thought of what he had said to me, in the darkness, just the hot breath of his voice in my ear, the tremble of his skin under my touch. It would stay with me forever, the way he had said those words back to me.


End file.
